


desolate and ready to kill

by renaissance



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Book 5: Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Gen, St Mungo's Hospital, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-04
Updated: 2017-12-04
Packaged: 2019-02-10 13:29:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12912909
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/renaissance/pseuds/renaissance
Summary: “I said I knew a werewolf personally, very nice man, who finds the condition quite easy to manage.”“What did he say?” asked George.“Said he'd give me another bite if I didn't shut up,” said Mr Weasley sadly.(Order of the Phoenix, p. 432)





	desolate and ready to kill

**Author's Note:**

> i keep stopping in the middle of my ootp reread because i get Ideas. "christmas in the closed ward" hit me like a tonne of bricks and all i could think about was remus going to talk to the surly werewolf in the "dangerous" dai llewellyn ward of st mungo's. so i gave a bit of life to the man the hp wiki refers to as "unidentified werewolf," and gave him this conversation. one of those fics that happened pretty much all in one sitting, and here it is!
> 
> title is from "raised by wolves" by voxtrot.

What a miserable thing it was, to be spending Christmas in St Mungo’s. Lucky for some—the old man in the corner who’d been bitten by a snake or something was surrounded by family and friends, and even the mad woman by the door had another mad-looking woman by her bedside. And here was Rupert Boot, alone in his hospital bed.

It was not for lack of trying, on his family’s part. His parents had owled him asking when he’d be home for Christmas, and he had replied saying that he was still busy with his work in the wild Highlands. If they had realised that their owl came back to them faster than expected from the far north, they hadn’t commented. Rupert hadn’t bothered to hide it. Terry had written briefly— _ Happy Christmas, I’m spending the holidays at Anthony’s so I’m not sure when I’ll see you, hope you’re well _ —and Rupert had not bothered to reply, because there were six years between him and Terry, a gap that only grew with the time they spent apart.

The crux of the matter, of course, was that Rupert had told the truth to no-one who did not need to know. He was on the Werewolf Register, he had been summarily fired from his job, and he’d ignored all the messages from his colleagues, each one of them absolutely rancid with sympathy. It was all artifice, of course. Everyone thought werewolves were rotten and there was no use hiding that behind “I’m so sorry for your affliction” and “keeping you and your swift recovery in my thoughts this holiday season.” Rupert had never much cared for people, anyway. He was ready to live out the rest of his life in seclusion, roaming the wilderness and hunting for survival, giving in to the primal urges he was sure he’d start experiencing any time now. Maybe he’d even go back to the Highlands.

While an argument started brewing somewhere in the midst of the man with the snake bite’s extended family, one of their number ducked out. Couldn’t blame him, Rupert thought. You couldn’t get much more grim than a shouting match in a hospital ward on Christmas Day.

To Rupert’s surprise, the man was coming towards him. He pulled up the only chair by Rupert’s bedside.

“Don’t come too close,” Rupert snapped. “Haven’t they told you I bite?”

“Oh, I’m not worried about that,” the man said. He had such a benign smile on his face that Rupert had to wonder what the catch was. “Do you have anyone coming to visit you today?”

“As if.”

The man’s kind expression didn’t flag. “I know how that feels. I tend not to have anyone to celebrate with at this time of year, either.”

“You’re with that lot over there,” Rupert said.

“I am,” the man agreed, “but I’m not really  _ with _ them, you understand.”

Rupert felt bad for him—only for a moment, before he remembered that he pretty much had the worst lot of anyone in the world, and however depressing this fellow’s life was, it had absolutely nothing on what Rupert would have to face when he told his family why he ignored them all season.

In the silence before he could think of a response, the man asked, “What’s your name?”

“Rupert Boot.”

“I’m Remus Lupin. It’s good to meet you, Rupert.”

That name sounded familiar. Rupert paused, mouth half-open, to think where he might’ve heard it before. Someone Terry knew? A teacher? Yes, that’s right, the Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher Terry’d had a couple of years ago who’d lost the job because he’d turned out to be—

“—a werewolf. Shit, didn’t mean to say that out loud, I just—you are a werewolf, aren’t you?”

Remus sat back in his seat, still smiling. “Yes, I am. Word travels fast.”

“My younger brother was in one of your Defence classes,” Rupert explained. He didn’t want the only person on his side to think that he was a total arsehole. “He spoke very highly of you.”

“Of course, I should have realised from your surname,” Remus said. “Terry Boot. His boggart was a clown—we had a lot of fun with that one.” 

That must have been, what, two years ago? Rupert was impressed. He looked at the big group of people who Remus had come in with, then back at Remus. This werewolf didn’t look like the ones in Rupert’s old Defence textbooks. He wasn’t so hairy, didn’t have prominent fangs, had a perfectly kind demeanour.

“You were only bitten at the last full moon?” Remus asked.

Rupert nodded. He hadn’t told the full story to anyone yet. “I’m—well, I  _ was _ with the DRCMC, in the Spirit Division. I was working in the Scottish Highlands, warding off a nasty cadre of poltergeists around some Muggle hiking trails. It was going fine until one of the poltergeists stole my backpack, which had my map and all of my supplies in it. I was lost and I was hunting for food with just my wand, and I guess I offended a local werewolf by eating the rabbit he’d been saving up, or something. After I was bitten, I was so disoriented that I gave up on the remaining poltergeists and Apparated straight to St Mungo’s.”

“You must be very resourceful, to have lasted so long without all of your things,” Remus said.

“Hardly a long time,” Rupert said. “It was just a couple of hours.”

“Nevertheless, you’re going to need to keep up that kind of attitude now. I know it sounds awful to say, but society hates our kind. Truly despises us. It’s hard to find work, even harder to keep it. Without money, the Wolfsbane Potion is hard to come by, and so we have to comprehensively seclude ourselves once a month. It’s not easy, Rupert.”

Rupert didn’t want to think about that part of it just yet. “How long have you been doing this for, then?”

“Thirty years,” Remus said. His smile fell. “I’m used to it by now. The fifth of January is the next full moon—your first, I suppose. I don’t want to intrude, but if you want company…”

Well, now Rupert was thinking about it. He was twenty-one now. Where would he be in thirty years?

“Yeah,” Rupert said. “That’d be—nice, I suppose.”

“There’s nothing like having other animals by your side when you transform. Trust me on that.”

An alarming thought crossed Rupert’s mind. “Do you have a  _ pack _ ?”

Remus laughed, although Rupert couldn’t see what was funny about it. “No, no. Nothing like that. I used to have some friends—a dog and a stag—who I would meet on the full moon. These days, though, I’m fully domesticated.”

“We could start our own pack,” Rupert said. “I don’t need to—nobody needs to know—we could live in the wilderness and—”

“One moment,” Remus said. He sounded a bit too much like a teacher for Rupert’s comfort. “Have you told your family?”

The silence that followed was enough to make it very clear what Rupert’s answer would’ve been, had he collected himself in time. At last he managed to say, “My parents would kick me out if they knew! You don’t understand!”

Calmly, Remus said, “Please don’t tell me that I don’t understand.”

Yeah. Fair point.

“I know exactly how hard this is for you,” Remus went on. “If there’s ever anything you need please owl me. It’s not glamorous, but I know of several people who’ll be willing to employ you. Albus Dumbledore—”

“I’m not going back to Hogwarts!” 

“If you would let me finish; Albus Dumbledore is active in the resistance against You-Know-Who—whether or not you believe the stories—and there’s always work for werewolves as—”

“Remus!” called someone from the man with the snake bite’s bedside. The arguing had died down. “Could you have a poke around and see where Ron and the others have wandered off to?”

“Of course, Molly,” Remus said, looking over his shoulder. He turned back to Rupert. “Well. Owl me. Owl your parents first, I’d say, and your brother too.”

“I will.”

Remus reached out and put his and on Rupert’s arm, looking as though he wanted to say something else but didn’t know how to articulate it. Even after thirty years, Rupert supposed, it was hard to come to terms with this, with how it changed you, with how it changed what everyone thought of you.

“Thanks,” Rupert added.

He watched as Remus went back to the crowd of people who cared about him, talked to them briefly, and then went off to search for whoever Ron and the others were. Rupert would owl Remus; apart from anything else, he wanted to know what kind of work Albus Dumbledore had specifically for werewolves in the resistance against You-Know-Who—not that Rupert really believed those stories.

Later that day, once everything had died down, Rupert called for a Healer and asked for two rolls of parchment, a quill, and an inkwell. He’d give the letters to some of the hospital owls, and if they reached his family in time, maybe he’d get visitors after all.


End file.
